by Arthur C.
Johann’s happiness amazed him. Often he would lie awake on his mat at night, chuckling to himself about his good fortune. If I were a praying man, he thought one night, I would ask God to freeze time right here, right now. I want to feel like this forever.
One night after a nude swim and some unusually athletic sex that left both of them exhausted and satisfied, Johann and Beatrice were lying side by side on the sand, staring idly at the dark ceiling above their heads.
“I don’t see how heaven could possibly be any better than this,” Johann said.
“Nor can I,” said Beatrice. “But God’s imagination is unlimited. And He knows us better than we know ourselves. I’m certain He’ll have something wonderful—”
She stopped and glanced over at Johann. “What are we talking about?” she said with a look of mock seriousness. “You don’t believe in heaven… You just barely believe in God.”
Johann reached over and kissed her. “If anything could cause me to become a believer,” he said, “it’s spending time with you. None of God’s angels could possibly compare with you in bed.”
“I’ll accept that sacrilege as a compliment,” Beatrice said with a laugh. “You are still in the grip of what we used to call ‘neophyte aura’ in the order. It’s very flattering, but I know it will wear off in time. Then I’ll just be your best friend Beatrice again.”
“And that’s a pretty wonderful thing too,” Johann said.
Johann was in the midst of a dazzling dream. His dream screen was glowing with light and Beatrice was standing in the middle of a cloud, wearing a white dress. A deep, sonorous voice said, “She belongs to the universe.”
He felt Beatrice’s touch on his shoulder. “Wake up, Johann,” she said insistently. “Wake up and give me your hand.”
Johann stirred and reached his right hand in her direction. She took the fingers of his hand and placed them on her stomach. “The baby kicked me hard,” she said excitedly, “not even a minute ago. Once before I felt two or three kicks before he stopped… There, that was another one. Did you feel it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on, baby,” Beatrice said. “Kick once more for Uncle Johann.”
Johann felt a tiny thrust against his fingers. He sat up. “Hey,” he said. “I did feel it.”
“That was the best one, Johann,” Beatrice said. “And it was just for you.” She was smiling broadly. “I wish you could know what it was like to feel a life growing inside you… There’s nothing like it. I could not possibly have imagined how exciting it is.”
She adjusted the pillow behind her head and placed both her hands on her stomach. Johann lay back down on his mat and closed his eyes.
“Do you think it’s unfair, Johann,” she said, “that women can have babies and men can’t?”
He opened his eyes again and smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“I had a friend named Ted at the University of Minnesota,” Beatrice said, “who was studying music with me. He was terribly upset that he would never be able to be pregnant and have a baby. When one of the other students did become pregnant, Ted told all of us that he was jealous of her… you jealous that I can feel this baby kick and you can’t?”
Johann laughed. “Certainly not,” he said.
“Would you be if it were our baby, ‘I mean, yours and mine?”
Johann hesitated before answering. “I don’t know,” he said. “I might be a little jealous then.”
“It still bothers you that this is Yasin’s child, doesn’t it?” Beatrice said after a brief silence.
Johann looked away. “Yes,” he said. “But I wish it didn’t. I keep hoping…”
“Be patient with yourself, darling,” she said. “You can’t program your feelings from your brain. Maybe after she is born…”
“Oh, so it’s a girl baby this week?” Johann said. “Last week you were so certain it was a boy that you insisted I refer to him as Michael.” He laughed.
“Pregnant women change their minds about these things,” Beatrice said. “It’s their right.”
Johann closed his eyes again. “When was the last time that I told you that I loved you?” Beatrice said.
“Sometime yesterday,” Johann said. “I think it was right after dinner.”
“I love you, Johann,” she said.
“I love you, Beatrice,” he said.
As the time for the birth grew near, Johann made certain that he was never gone from their cave area for more than thirty minutes at a time. Each time Johann left, Beatrice would talk to God, telling Him that she hoped it was not His will for the baby to come while Johann was away.
She spent most of her time inside the cave, lying or sitting on the mat beside the two basins of water and swatches of fresh soft material that Johann replaced each day. Whenever Beatrice tried to move about or do anything that required any effort, the baby pressed down painfully against her cervix. The extra weight also made her ungainly. Several times she stumbled on the rocks and nearly fell.
Johann had already built a cradle for the baby to sleep in, and Beatrice bad sewn a couple of newborn outfits plus all the diapers the infant could possibly need. Together they designed and made a couple of backpacks to carry the baby after he or she was born. They were both ready. In her nightly prayers Beatrice told God that they had completed their preparations, and thanked Him for her good health throughout the pregnancy, but she stopped short of requesting outright an early birth.
When, according to her calculations, her due date had passed, Beatrice became impatient and anxious. “What are we going to do, Johann,” she said one morning, “if the baby doesn’t ever come? What if it just grows and grows and I never go into labor?”
“We certainly don’t need to worry about that yet,” he said. “If I remember correctly, first babies are often late.”
She felt the first cramps of labor a few days later during breakfast. “What was that?” she said. Then her face brightened. “I think I felt my first contraction, Johann,” Beatrice said excitedly. “I think it’s beginning.”
He helped her into the cave. Her labor proceeded slowly. Four hours later her water broke, but her contractions stayed more than five minutes apart until after it was dark.
As the hours passed Johann became concerned. Beatrice had been in continuous labor for thirteen hours. Each contraction was excruciatingly painful for her. Yet she didn’t seem to be making much progress. The individual contractions remained separated by four minutes or more.
Her terrible cries at the peak of each contraction unnerved Johann. He did not know what to do to comfort her. It seemed that he had just mopped the sweat off her forehead and moistened her lips when another contraction would start.
“Oh. no, oh, Johann, here comes another one,” Beatrice would say, tightening her grip on his hand. Her body would arch up, her face would contort, and she would take a few short breaths before the pain would overwhelm her. Then she would scream and Johann would fight against his own panic.
“I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t do it,” Beatrice said several times between contractions.
“You can make it, darling,” he reassured her. “Just a little more… The baby will be here soon.”
Johann had positioned a torch just outside the entrance, but the light in the cave was still not very good. Every time Beatrice asked him to look at her and see if anything was different, Johann could not see well enough to tell her anything encouraging.
Several times during the long labor Beatrice prayed out loud. After one especially painful contraction, she again clasped her hands on her chest. “Dear God,” she said, “please, please help me find the strength and courage to bring this baby into the world. I am afraid, dear God, and so very tired. Please let it be Thy will for my child to be born before too much longer.”
The contractions became even more painful when the baby’s head wedged its way into the birth canal. “I’m not big enough, J
ohann,” Beatrice screamed desperately. “I can feel it… I don’t want to rip apart. You must cut me open.”
“But how?” Johann said, becoming frantic. “I’m not a doctor. And I can’t even see down there, it’s too damn dark.”
At her insistence he rushed out of the cave to the toolbox, over against a wall in the plaza, not far from the perpetual fire. Johann was so busy searching for the large knife, the needles, and the makeshift thread that he didn’t see the burst of light behind him.
When he returned to the cave, the glowing light was hovering over Beatrice’s body and another contraction was beginning. Johann did not have time to examine the ribbon. Rushing to follow Beatrice’s instructions, he widened her opening by slitting the skin below the vagina. He wiped away the blood with the damp cloth in his other hand. The baby’s head crowned immediately, filling the enlarged opening. With the next contraction, Maria spurted forward into Johann’s hands. He wiped her off and cut through the umbilical cord.
“It’s a girl,” he said to Beatrice. “You have a beautiful baby girl.” Maria began to cry.
“We have a baby girl,” she said, correcting him. At the sound of the child’s cry Beatrice’s eyes filled up with tears of joy. “We have a baby girl,” she repeated.
She took the newborn infant from Johann and laid her against her bare chest. “Thank you, oh thank you, God, for Maria,” Beatrice said, looking up at the ribbon. Then she placed one of her nipples inside Maria’s lips and rubbed it back and forth. After several seconds the child stopped crying and latched onto the nipple. At first she sucked intermittently, as if she wasn’t certain that this was what she wanted to do. Beatrice remained calm. Each time that Maria let go of the nipple, she replaced it gently in the girl’s mouth.
Once the child was nursing, and the placenta had been discharged, Johann tried to stitch Beatrice back together again. It was not an easy task—his hands were shaking and it was hard to see. Beatrice was also still bleeding heavily, making it difficult for him to concentrate on what he was doing.
At length, when he had only been able to complete four painful stitches in several minutes, Beatrice suggested that he make a large absorbent pad that could be tied around her hips and thighs. “Try to press the two sides of the incision together before you apply the pad,” she said. “That should help it to heal.”
When Johann was finished, he washed his hands in a fresh basin of water. Without warning, the ribbon abruptly flew out of the entrance to the cave and disappeared into the night. “Thank you,” Beatrice shouted as it departed.
“Thank you,” echoed Johann, who sat down wearily next to the new mother. Maria was now asleep on her chest.
“I’m sorry,” Johann said, “that I wasn’t better with the stitching business… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Don’t be silly,” Beatrice said with a radiant smile. “You were wonderful with everything. I couldn’t have done it without you."
Johann smiled and took her hand. “Are you happy?” he said.
She looked down at Maria. “Supremely, divinely happy,” she said.
19
Maria cried most of the night. The only time she was quiet was when she was nursing or taking a short nap. Johann was more tired when daylight came than he had been after the birth.
His first look at Beatrice frightened him. Her face was exceedingly pale, and her eyes were bloodshot. She told him that she assumed her weakness was normal, since it had been a long and arduous birth.
Johann held Maria in his arms several times and examined her carefully. She had a small patch of dark hair near the front of her head. Her skin color was dark like her father’s, but her face and eyes reminded Johann of Beatrice.
“I think her eyes are going to be blue, like yours,” Johann said.
Beatrice forced a wan smile. “When you have a chance,” she then said, “will you make me a new pad? I feel as if this one’s already completely soaked.”
Johann put the crying Maria in his backpack and strapped it over his shoulders. He bent down next to Beatrice’s mat and lifted the long robe she was wearing. What Johann saw sent chills through his body. Blood was everywhere—on the pad, on the robe, even all over the new mat to which he had moved her after the birth. Johann had made the pad extra thick, with many layers of material, thinking that he would not need to change it for a day or two. He had been wrong.
Being careful not to alarm Beatrice, he excused himself quietly and went to the storehouse cave. He was back with a new pad and a large tub of water within minutes.
“Are you sore?” Johann said to Beatrice as he gingerly unfastened the old pad.
“A little,” she said.
Johann saw the problem as soon as he removed the pad. He wiped off the area around the incision, but it became bloody again within seconds. Rivulets of blood were still running out of Beatrice. He touched the area lightly with his fingers, trying fruitlessly to locate the sources of the blood. She winced with pain when he touched her.
“I’m sorry,” Johann said, his mind struggling to absorb what he was seeing. What should I tell her? he thought next. I don‘t want to scare her.
“You’re still bleeding,” Johann said in a measured tone. “Do you know if that’s normal, or what we should do to stop it?”
“I don’t know, Johann,” she said. “My crash course in childbirth during my training didn’t go that far.”
He cleaned Beatrice thoroughly and applied the new pad. She continued to bleed the entire time.
“I’m really tired, darling,” she said when he was finished. “Do you mind if I take a nap after I feed Maria? Can you take care of her for an hour or two?”
“Gladly,” Johann said, suppressing his fears.
With Maria sleeping in the pack on his back, Johann walked down to the beach next to their cave. He waded into the water up to his knees, just below the bottom of his shorts, and gazed out across the lake.
“And how will we explain all this to you, little Maria?” he said out loud. “Will you ever be able to comprehend fully that you, your mother, and your uncle Johann live on an island in the middle of a giant spherical spaceship, both of which were created by extraterrestrials, or God and His angels, for purposes completely unknown?”
He tried to look over his shoulder at the sleeping child. Johann laughed to himself. “You probably won’t even care about all these mysteries for many years. Your world will be your mother, your uncle, the caves, the lake, the mountain—and it will be more than enough. You will have love and companionship. You will not need to know the answers to the infinite questions… Not soon anyway.”
Johann walked slowly down the beach. Maria stirred and began to cry softly. “You were conceived in pain and anger, my little Maria,” he said. “But I promise you that your life will be altogether different.”
He carefully unstrapped the backpack and placed it on the sand. Johann lifted Maria out of it and held her over his head, her legs dangling in the air. “I love you, Maria,” he said, “and not just because I love your mother so much.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I love you because you are a human being, a very special, unique creature in this universe, with unlimited potential for intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth… I also love you because I know that I will learn from you what it means to be unselfish.”
Beatrice was still sleeping on her back when they returned to the cave. Johann could tell that she was dreaming; her eyelids were fluttering rapidly. Maria had fallen asleep again on the walk home. Being careful not to jostle the backpack too much, Johann sat down on his mat.
“Yes, I understand,” Beatrice said in her sleep. “God’s will be done.” Tears formed in her eyes. “Thank you, thank you, Michael,” she said. “Yes, I will tell him.”
She was silent for no more than a minute before she opened her eyes. “Johann?” Beatrice said immediately.
“We are here, beside you,” he said. “Maria is sleeping.”
“Come over here, please,�
�� she said, a strange tone in her voice. “I have had a vision.”
Balancing the child in the backpack. Johann crawled over next to Beatrice. She reached out and grabbed his hand. “St. Michael came to me in a dream, Johann,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. “He told me that God has called for me… I am going to die.”
Johann felt a sharp pain in his heart and then a weird tingle spread throughout his body. He tried to speak but could not. He barely managed to catch his breath.
Beatrice did not take her eyes off him. “Michael looked exactly as he did the last time I saw him in Italy,” she continued, “before I went home for my father’s funeral. Michael was smiling, Johann. Such a beautiful smile… did not tell me exactly when I will die, but I know it will be very soon.”
“No!” Johann said, shaking his head in protest. “You are not going to die. It cannot—”
Beatrice put her finger to his lips. “Please listen to me, Johann,” she said. “I have a lot to tell you and there’s not much time left.”
She struggled to sit up. Johann hurriedly grabbed some pillows and put them behind her back. When he looked at her again, a trickle of blood was flowing out of her left nostril. The blood was pale red, like the rivulets Johann had seen earlier in the morning, not the deep, dark red blood that had accompanied the birth of Maria. He shuddered involuntarily and daubed at her face with a piece of moist material.
She thanked him softly and squeezed his hand. The blood continued to flow from her nose. “I know you will love Maria. Johann,” she said. “I’m not in the least worried about that. And I’m certain you will raise her in a way that demonstrates to God, or your aliens, if you prefer, that we humans are capable of transcending our darker feelings. To be able and willing to love and care for the child of an enemy is a tribute to the best qualities in our species.
“But there are two things I want you to promise me now, Johann. First, that you will tell Maria the truth—about her mother, about her real father, and about how she came to be. How much of the truth you tell her at what point in her life, I leave that to your judgment. But, Johann, Maria deserves the truth.”
